Blockchain engineers are making on average between $150,000 and $175,00 per year, according to recruiting firm Hired. This rate is pretty impressive, especially given that the typical software engineer is paid an average of $135,000 per year, added Hired.

The salaries for blockchain expertise have skyrocketed, according to Hired, becoming on par with salaries offered to artificial intelligence (AI) developers, and significantly higher than other specialized engineering roles. The reason for the salary increase correlates with the increased demand for blockchain tech knowledge, Hired found.

Demand for blockchain experts has been seen in many large companies, like Facebook, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft, reported CNBC. Since 2017, job postings with blockchain as a desired skill have risen by 400% on Hired.

"There's a ton of demand for blockchain," Mehul Patel, CEO of Hired, told CNBC. "Software engineers are in very short supply, but this is even more acute and that's why salaries are even higher."

The most common types of blockchain jobs hold titles such as back end engineer, systems engineer, or solutions architect, said Hired. Engineers who want to gain expertise in blockchain should learn networking, database design, and cryptography computing skills, said CNBC.

Programming languages like Java, JavaScript, C++, Go, Solidity, and Python are all languages blockchain engineers typically code in, said CNBC, so learning those languages is invaluable.

Check out this TechRepublic article to learn about the 15 most in-demand blockchain jobs on the market.

The big takeaways for tech leaders:

Blockchain engineers hold one of the highest-paid tech positions, making between $150,000 and $175,000 per year on average, according to Hired.

Demand for blockchain engineers has increased, as job postings with blockchain listed as a desired skill expanding by 400% since 2017. — Hired, 2018

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